
F;io3 
.CiUs 



yoo 



014 366 266 4 



Conservation Resources 







Vv/ 






r^r 



■C7a6'' 









V .^ - ^il'^tVjp^ 




HRISTOPHER COLUMBUS was born in Genoa. Italy, in or 
about the year 1446. 

He was the eldest son of a woolcomber and, having early evinced 
a decided inclination for the sea. his education was maunly 
directed to fit him for maritime life. 

At the age of 14 he began his nautical career and for a number 
of years was engaged in commercial voyages on the Mediterranean, principally 
to the Levant. 

About 1470 he married in Lisbon where he supported himself by making 
maps and charts and spent much time in study. Becoming convinced that the 
world was round and believing that Asia might be reached by sailing west- 
ward, he proposed to the Portugese king to make an expedition in that direction. 
Failing to enlist his support, he went to Spain (1484) and offered the enterprise to 
Ferdinand and Isabella. For eight years he met with no success and lived in poverty. 

Early in 1492, after obtaining a personal interview with the sovereigns of 
Spain. Columbus was again refused, but a last effort with the Queen on the part 
of his friends was successful, and on April 17, 1492, the agreement granting the 
demands of Columbus was signed by the King and Queen. 

Three small vessels were fitted out at Palos, the Santa Maria as flagship, 
the Nina and the Pinta. With these, manned by 88 men, Columbus left Palos 
August 3, 1492. and after an adventurous voyage, on October 12, 1492, discov- 
ered the island of San Salvador, one of the Bahamas, and took possession in the 
name of Castile. Various other islands were soon discovered, all of which he 
supposed to be outlying parts of Asia. 

The Santa Maria was wrecked on the Heiitian coast and Columbus, after 
leaving a colony of 40 men. set sail for Spain in the Nina January 4. 1493. 

Arriving at Palos March 15, 1493, he was called to Court and received 
with great honor. In September he again embarked with a large expedition, and 
having discovered the Windward Islands, Jamaica and Porto Rico, and founded 
a colony in Hayti, or San Domingo, which he called Hispaniola, he returned to 
Cadiz, June 1 1, 1496, to clear himself of charges brought agednst him by jealous 
enemies. 

Columbus on his third voyage fMay 1498) discovered the mouth of the 
Orinoco, Trinidad, and other small islands. Reaching Hispaniola, there to 
recruit his enfeebled health, he found the colony disorganized, and in his efforts 
to restore it became again the victim of malice and misrepresentation. A royal 
Commissioner, sent to enquire info the difficulties, at once put Columbus in chains, 
and sent him to Spain. Popular indignation at this treatment caused his release, 
but his entreaties for redress did not obtain for him the restoration of his dignities. 

The only subsequent employment of Columbus was the command of a small 
expedition (May 1502) to circumnavigate the globe. He discovered Honduras, 
coasted the Isthmus of Panama, and after much suffering returned home, reaching 
San Lucar November 7. I 504. 

His renewed entreaties for redress were rejected and his remaining days were 
spent in poverty and neglect. 

Columbus died at Valladolid, Spain, May 20, 1 506. 



QIIjp (IH)riHto;jljpr (Cnlumbua ilrmorial (CmtmiisBton 



PHILANDER C. KNOX 

Secretary of State 

HENRY L. STIMSON 

Secretary of War 

GEORGE P. WETMORE 

Chairman of the Committee on the Library of the Senate 

of the 59th Congress 

JAMES T. McCLEARY 

Chairman of the Committee on the Library 

of the House of Representatives 

of the 59th Congress 

JAMES A. FLAHERTY 

Supreme Knight of the Order of the Knights of Columbus 



COLONEL SPENCER COSBY, U. S. Army 
Ejcecutive and Disbursing Officer 

W. R. PEDIGO 
Secretary 



(Tl^p S>ruljJtar 

LORADO TAFT 




|Y AN ACT approved March 4, 1907, Congress appropriated 
the sum of $100,000.00 for the erection in the City of Wash- 
ington of a suitable memorial to Christopher Columbus, and 
created a Commission composed of the Secretary of State, the 
Secretary of War, the chairman of the Committee on the Library 
of the Senate of the Fifty-ninth Congress, the chairman of the 
Committee on the Library of the House of Representatives of the Fifty-ninth 
Congress, and the Supreme Knight of the Order of the Knights of Columbus, 
with authority to select a site and a suitable design and to contract for and super- 
intend the construction of the memorial. 

On February 4, 1908, the Commission selected as a site for the memorial 
the plaza in front of the new Union Railroad Station, and in the following No- 
vember entered into an engagement with D.H. Burnham and Company to act as 
architects of the memorial. 

In February, 1909, the Commission, after carrying out a program of compe- 
tition during which twenty-one models were submitted by twenty competitors, 
selected Mr. Lorado Taft of Chicago as sculptor, and on March 4, 1910, a 
contract was entered into with Mr. Taft to furnish models for the sculptural work, 
to exercise supervision over its execution in stone, and to superintend its erection. 
The following is the sculptor's description of the monument: 
"The memorial has been given the form of a nearly semi-circular fountain, 
sixty-six feet broad and forty-four feet deep, constructed of Georgia marble. 
The central feature is a pylon or shaft some forty-five feet in height, crowned 
with a globe which is supported by four eagles, united by garlands. From the 
front of this shaft a boat's prow extends into the upper basin. The winged 
figurehead of this decorative vessel symbolizes the Spirit of Discovery, but might 
well be a personification of Failh. The ship serves as a pedestal for the statue of 
Columbus, which is fifteen feet in height and carved from a single block of 
beautiful white marble. This figure, wrapped in its medieval mantle, stands in a 
quiet pose with folded arms and steady gaze, expressive of the confidence of the 
great spirit within. The artist has wished to give it something of the simplicity of 
Egyptian sculptures, with their suggestion of calm and permanency. 

From the lateral faces of the shaft project seated figures, somewhat heraldic 
in posture, typifying the Old World and the New World. The Old World is 
represented as a patriarchal figure resting the arms upon a shield and grasping a 
crumbled map. The New World, an Indian, crouches behind his rude shield 
and reaches for an arrow. 

On the rear is a double medallion picturing Ferdinand the Catholic and 
Isabella of Castile, and beneath this relief is the inscription. 

The grouping is completed by two couchant lions, set at the axis ends of the 
balustrade." 



'30 tt|r mpmary nf (El^riatoplipr (Columbua vnlioap Ijigl? faitlj 
nnb inbomitabU rourai^p gabp to manktnli a n?m hiarlb." 

[Inscription on the Memorial] 



llSS^ °^ CONGRESS 

iW. 



